Killing Eve closes its season with dancing and surprising deaths, just like it began
TV Reviews killing eve
After a season spent poking at the seams of an international cabal of evildoers, it somehow seems inevitable that Killing Eve wrapped up its season with the same group of four people in a room together that we’ve known since the start of the show. Thanks to a late-breaking reveal around the circumstances of Kenny’s death, everyone finds themselves gathered in the home of Paul the traitor, parsing through the details of just what happened that day.
It’s a little bit underwhelming, in terms of a grand finale. Instead of some big reveal about the actions of the Twelve, we get the same bureaucrat that we always knew was a traitor. The grounds haven’t exactly shifted beneath anyone’s feet, since Carolyn is already carefully cleaning up her own mess. Konstantin and Villanelle are both on the outs with the Twelve, but they’ve been moving in that direction all season. The only big change is that Konstantin actually leaves this time, and Villanelle seems to have quit her job in fiery fashion.
And Eve? Well, it’s hard to say where this all leaves her. A giant season-long mystery gets resolved because Bear belatedly remembers that he had a camera in the office the whole time. What was the point of any of the investigating? All the fuss over Kenny’s phone, and the shaky alliances between the Bitter Pill employees and Eve and Carolyn, and the negotiations at MI:6 over his death seem a bit pointless now. Why did Bear only now remember that he could see who was in the office that day? It’s such an odd crux to hang the whole resolution of this mystery on. And thanks to how little time we’ve spent with Eve over the course of the season, it’s hard to tell what result she was expecting. She chides Carolyn immediately for killing a useful source, but how much more information were they going to get out of Paul? She already knows who tried to kill Niko, and at this point, everyone seems to know who Hélène is. The show itself seems to be shrugging off the investigation of the Twelve, with Carolyn wearily saying there’s no point in trying to take it down.
The big resolution, instead, seems to be the tipping point in Eve and Villanelle’s relationship. There have been signs all season that Villanelle was developing something approaching a conscience, but the finale may have had her displaying her first moment of genuine empathy: encouraging Eve to leave because she knows she’s bad for her. There have been a series of slightly heavy-handed scenes of authority figures telling Villanelle she’s only good for one thing, all of which are fuel for the moment where she asks Eve if she’s a monster, who replies that everyone is a monster somehow. I mean, sure. Sometimes we all have bad days. Villanelle has killed many, many people. It’s hard to tell if the show is trying to have it both ways here, or if Eve is. Villanelle is both a monstrous person who’s murdered people for money whose presence sparks Eve’s own worst instincts, and a victim of a shitty upbringing who is now interested in redeeming herself. These aren’t necessarily contradictory concepts, but Eve’s apparent interest in forgiving at least some of her behavior feels strange—she’s never seemed had an interest in redeeming Villanelle before. If anything, her earlier obsession with her seemed like it had a lot to do with her jealousy of someone living her life as violently and hedonistically as possible, and what someone is like if she actually enjoys killing. What’s the basis of their connection if Eve now likes a nice (well, nice-ish) version of Villanelle?
It’s a concept the show plays coy with, ending the season for once not with Eve and Villanelle trying to kill each other, but instead facing off on a bridge, stuck between the recognition that they’re bad for each other, but unable to quite let go. Eve doesn’t have a whole lot holding her to her old life. As she herself admits, she can’t quite envision what her future should be. And Villanelle, despite her decision not to follow Konstantin out of the Twelve, is now in big trouble, having killed the messenger who’d come to bring her in.
This felt like a transitional season in a lot of ways, the stretch in between the initial version of what Eve and Villanelle are to each other and whatever they’re becoming next. They’ve both more or less spurned the organizations that built them up, and given the choice, they both pick each other over their mentors. The show has already been renewed for a new season, so that updated version of their relationship will be on full display, assuming anything is ever allowed to start filming again. Can two people whose connection has been toxic to them both ever truly be good for each other?
Stray observations
- “Eve, I’m at your work. Everyone here is really strange.” This would actually be true at any media outlet.
- The implication that Eve has envisioned a future where she and Villanelle grow old together is so odd to me. That has never seemed like what Eve’s fantasy of Villanelle is.
- The camera stayed on Villanelle’s face for long stretches of Carolyn’s confrontation with Konstantin, in a way that made me wonder whether the suggestion was that she was rejecting Konstantin, or discovering that her new kink is watching someone else threaten to murder someone.
- Still not totally clear on what the point was of dramatically revealing that Carolyn had a secret daughter, and then doing nothing to advance the relationship or have the daughter play a role in the plot. There’s a vague “Konstantin was spying on them” angle, but it’s unclear what he even got out of that. I thought at first that Carolyn would say she wanted Geraldine to leave in order to protect her, but she doesn’t.
- Some parallelism with the premiere here, as Villanelle starts and ends the season dancing with a woman. The first version was glamorous and false; the second version is slightly dingy, but more true.
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I think Carolyn told Geraldine to leave to protect her, and because she wanted her to get a life, and because she was tired of having her around and having to talk about her feelings. Mother-daughter relationships are tough…I guess I believe that Konstantin really didn’t intend to kill Kenny? As Villanelle said, if he had wanted to kill him he would have sent someone else to do it. Well at least Carolyn got to kill Paul. They certainly both deserved for that to happen. I liked the ending, which is not exactly what I expected, though I thought it would be along those lines, but with more making out
I think there are a number of factors involved. For one thing, Carolyn can’t have a daughter around who’ll let herself get played by Konstantin and sneak a bug into her house, and I think there’s genuine annoyance there. Two, yes I think she wants to protect Geraldine; she’s had to bury Kenny, she doesn’t want to bury her daughter too. But ultimately I think Carolyn is just out of fucks to give: about being a good spy, about the Twelve, and about being the type of mother Geraldine wants. She’s just done.
I agree with you on all counts. The scene where Geraldine sat down and wrote out a whole dissertation on the mother she wanted to have and Carolyn opened an empty book and said “you need to go” tells you everything about them. For the most part I think she was too mean and dismissive to the point where it became almost cartoonish, but at the end of the day I agree with her being blunt and also that Geraldine needs to get an actual life that is far far away from spy games before she gets a pitchfork through her head. Perhaps she can go rule a royal house of naval raiders and help a queen reclaim her throne.
She would also do well in a house with an older sister who is fucking the fragile young lady on the next estate over, I think.
In the end it didn’t matter how Kenny died or who (if anybody) killed him. He was fridged purely as motivation for Eve and Carolyn. Although I can totally see him accidentally backing off the edge of the building when confronted by Konstantine.
While enjoyable, the whole season was a bit underbaked.
Killing Eve is such a weird, unique show, it is hard for me to say if a season is good or not. Certainly this season’s plot was somewhat muddled and the mystery of Kenny’s death was something of a dud. But Villanelle and Eve are as compelling as ever and I liked what it did to advance their dance. And I guess that is what I think really makes it interesting and special. Also I thought this was a really great season for Carolyn. It let us understand her about as well as we probably are going to. She is like one of Le Carre’s tragic spy heroes, but funnier.
The Twelve plot sank for me after V botched another job last week and killed the new upcomer this week with no swift repercussions from them. To be honest the twelve plot has never really made any type of defined sense since the beginning but V and Eve and a host of interesting characters kept things moving. Like this episode alone was worth it just for the main duos scenes.
Carolyn has always been the bomb, but she got a lot more emotional content this season in comparison to previous ones where she was just a force of nature who laconically spun out ex-cold war contacts/lovers and quips. She was maybe a bit too mean to poor Yara Greyjoy, but to be fair, her daughter was super needy.
I agree with your assessment of the plot and Kenny’s death, but in my opinion the show has always been more about character relationships and fun dialogue/action and Villanellle’s outfits rather then a super moving plot. The Twelve are just kind of there to move things along and get killed here and there.
Carolyn is top tier, but to me Konstantin was the MVP of the season. Very funny but also just absurdly put upon with his ginormous web of organizations, literal and figurative nesting dolls full of information. No wonder the poor dude keeled over. I’m psyched to see Kim Bodnia in anything now, so that makes me extra glad he’s in “The Witcher” !!!
Kim Bodnia has been insanely good as Konstantin. On paper like Villanelle he should not be likable, maybe even moreso than her. But they both really make you root for them
I don’t know if you’ve seen “Justified” but Kim Bodnia has started to remind me of Jere Burns. They bring so much likeability to characters who are real scumbags and they are also hilarious. And hard to kill.
Yeah he was terrific as Wynn Duffy, I can see that comparison
Remember Eve throwing her birthday cake off the roof? The top edge of the parapet is at least at her waist or higher. No way Kenny backed up and off that roof but I guess we are to pretend that was possible.
I’m glad you pointed that out. When Konstantin was talking about Kenny backing up and falling off the roof, I kept thinking that the wall on the roof was at least waist or midriff high for Eve, but I couldn’t remember for certain. I was trying to remember that episode. I had thought that Kenny couldn’t have just fallen, but would have had to jump or be thrown.
Yeah, so I’m not sure if this means Konstantin was clearly lying or just sloppy writing throwing in the lame “he fell” explanation.
I’m guessing that Kenny being a lot taller than Eve was the reason?
Like, Eve is a very tiny person despite her hair adding a few inches and
Kenny is a lanky dude so maybe that altered his center of balance.
Anyway, I think that is more of a writer’s error than a lie by
Konstantin.
It seems to be a badge of honour for this show, the fridging of male characters. And I’ve got no issue with that because it draws attention to the ubiquity of the trope in relation to female characters. But I agree that the handling of the reasons for, and circumstances surrounding, his death was unimaginative.
People are using a pretty broad definition of fridging here. Fridging is no JUST killing a female character to cause man-pain. In a classic fridging the character only exists to get killed, and has little to no character development. Kenny had been on the show for two season, just like the other character death that is famously wrongly characterized as a fridging, Tara from BTVS.TL:DR; there is way more to the definition of “fridging” beyond “Person killed to cause the lead character pain.” and I wish people would stop overusing the term.
I do get what you are saying, but I’m not sure you get to define narrowly what fridging means. I completely agree that the “classic” fridge is when the character has minimal character development before being killed, but I think you can still use the word to reference somewhat greyer examples. Bill’s character is fleshed out a bit before he meets his end in Season 1. And you could say that Kenny’s involvement in Season 3 is purely as a motivator for female characters, even if he has been in the previous two series.
Problem is, if you keep widening out the definition, you end up where we are now, which is “A character I like was killed, and I am mad about it, so I will call it a fridging because that puts my opinion on the moral high ground”.
Perhaps a slightly harsh reading of people’s inner thought process, but I do get where you are coming from.
Yeah, I can be guilty of some mild reductio ad absurdiam at times… Certainly I have issues with cleaning up my thoughts to make them more palatable to other people, which is why I am shadowbanned on two other Gizmodo platforms. I am almost incapable of not saying exactly what I think, consequences be damned.
That ledge was far too high for me to believe Kenny fell off it, twisted around and didn’t even scream before he went splat. That was just bad writing and a made-up ending.
I liked it more than two but less than one. Konstantin was the MVP for me this season and brought about many of the more enjoyable bits. The Kenny plot was meh and the newspaper crowd kind of fizzled but it at least moved forward at a good clip and didn’t get muddled and circular like season 2. Didn’t have a whole lot of Eve though TBH, but I understand because they had to flesh out a lot of other characters and introduce like maybe eight or nine new ones.
On the one hand, you are 100% correct.On the other hand, you are still 100% correct but I enjoy seeing a male character fridged to advance the plot for female characters for once in my life.
“You killed Kenny,” Eve seethes in this episode. Probably not intentional, but in hindsight Konstantin seems signposted as the killer in the previous episode when Irina yells “You bastard!” at his retreating back. Little clin d’œil to those of us cracking South Park jokes since S03E01. I now want to rewatch everything just to see if Konstantin is the only one who has that particular epithet slung at him. (Probably won’t, though.)
Liked the dance.He tripped?!?! Not Dasha? Not that jr.replacement Villanelle?
I’m fine with this finale being a little quiet given than the previous two had EXPLOSIVE SHOCKING ENDINGS and you can’t do that every time without becoming predictable, or doing it for the sake of doing it. The Good Place also ended its third season in a subdued manner compared to the first two.But the resolution to the Kenny thing was kind of anticlimactic, don’t you think? He just….fell off himself? If you’re following something for eight weeks there has to be a good payoff for it.
Everything plot related was pretty poor to be honest. But I thought the character work and resolutions for V Eve Carolyn And Konstantin were good all season.
I thought it would have been more moving if he had actually killed himself for some of the reasons Geraldine suggested about Carolyn hurting him and also because he was suffering from PTSD from all the hardcore stuff he’d seen over the years and fear of the Twelve. Like, maybe a bit too much of pulling the rug out from under the audience but also more compelling than “he just fell” and it would show the toll that this “spy game” takes on people, though I guess that’s what Nico is for.
I’m prepared for next season’s portrayal of blue-collar domestic bliss. Eve returns to the restaurant, Villanelle joins her, and both vent their “monsters” during customer service interactions.
“I WANNA SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER. I ordered hot tea—hot. Did you fail out school, honey?? How could yo—annnnd you just stabbed a fork into my eye.”
Villaneve vs. The Karens. There can only be one.
“Sweeney Eve”
This whole season can be summed up thusly:
“Why don’t you kiss her instead of talking her to death?!?”
Aww, youth is wasted on the wrong psychopaths.
Well at least they didn’t try to kill each other this time. Progress!I honestly don’t know what the end game with the Twelve is, they play them like a shadowy cabal that controls the world, but when push comes to shove they’ve been beaten down pretty easily. I’m sure they’ll still be around in the future to come for Villanelle & Konstantin but I don’t think beating them is at all important.I also don’t where we go with the Bitter Pill from here. They feel like something that’ll get dropped between seasons much like Elena, Hugo, and Jess before them.
I’m glad we finally got a scene between Villanelle & Carolyn, it was quite fun seeing Carolyn knock her on her ass. Same with Dasha staying alive long enough so she and Konstantin could have a conversation, that was also fun and enlightening.
Here’s the thing this season made me realize: I don’t care about Villanelle. I don’t care about her tragic upbringing and I don’t care about her occasional pangs of conscience.That’s not a reflection on Jodie Comer, who, it goes without saying, is consistently excellent. It’s just that the show spends episode after episode luxuriating in Villanelle’s violent hedonism, then it tries to pivot to, “Hey, she has a soul, and she’s really wounded inside, you know?” And I just don’t buy it.She’s a fun character. I enjoy her antics. I just can’t bring myself to care about her internal life.
That may be because she felt unique and original, and now she’s sliding into well worn territory we’ve seen a million times. But Jodie is so effortlessly watchable, they’re getting away with it.
I think what’s important is somewhere along the way the show decided it had to bring itself to care about Villanelle’s internal life. And I think it decided that for two reasons: (1) a Villanelle without a soul is tough to sustain as a compelling lead character longterm, and (2) a Villanelle without a soul can’t develop a genuine connection with the true lead, Eve.It’s all about Eve, really. The show had to bridge the gap between her and Villanelle as they were initially introduced to us. Eve has dark impulses, yeah, but she also has too strong a moral center for us to believe she’d be slow dancing with Villanelle these days if Villanelle were still nothing more than a gleeful killer-for-hire.Mileage will vary on how folks feel about the direction the show has taken Villanelle. I’ve enjoyed it. I’d like to see fewer tears and more awkward attempts at not murdering her way through life in the future, but I’ve definitely enjoyed the ride so far. And I trust the show to keep Villanelle outrageous and entertaining even if she’s not choking the life out of someone every episode.
This is a good post and good analysis, but I also think it illustrates why the turn with Villanelle this season didn’t really work for me: it feels more like a device to justify the Eve-Villanelle relationship than it does like organic character growth.I really liked the idea of Villanelle as a remorseless, murderous sociopath who has this connection to Eve that she simply can’t understand – her one sincere human connection involving sincere human emotions. It’s a different and rather bold take on a main character, instead of going the “look how secretly sympathetic she is” route.I think there are interesting dynamics you could explore with the Eve-Villanelle relationship without stacking the deck to make us root for it. Put the two in an actual relationship, but make clear it’s a toxic, borderline abusive dynamic where Eve just can’t escape the draw of Villanelle’s charisma and lifestyle. Or put them in a relationship and show Eve gradually coming to the realization that, for all Villanelle’s glamour and beauty, she’s just not that interesting – there’s only so much sex you can have in picturesque European locales, after all, and what exactly can you talk about with someone like Villanelle?And they might still go one of those directions – the last shot was clearly meant as an ambiguous image that can leave the new showrunner with a lot of places to take the relationship, depending on her preference. But there’s a danger that leaning into the fanservice-y relationship stuff so much ends up sanding away the characters’ rough edges, and it’s the rough edges that made the show so compelling to begin with.
I love a good remorseless, murderous sociopath in my TV shows. Ramsay Bolton (Game of Thrones), Black Jack Randall (Outlander), Kai Parker (The Vampire Diaries universe), George Hearst (Deadwood), and Kilgrave (Jessica Jones) immediately come to mind. None of those characters were leads, though. And only two were interested in an Eve-like protagonist: Black Jack Randall in Jamie Fraser and Kilgrave in Jessica Jones. And in neither of those cases did the Eve-like protagonists feel anything but revulsion for their psycho admirers. That’s not what’s been going on with Eve and Villanelle these last three seasons.There exists a version of Killing Eve in which Villanelle is Eve’s Kilgrave, in which Eve is relentlessly pursued and tormented by a charismatic, intelligent, talented, attractive, violent, and deranged person whose warped sense of love justifies every cruel act as necessary to convince her they are a perfect match and can make each other happy. And maybe that version even unfolds as you describe, with Villanelle being surprised to feel genuine affection for someone, with Eve struggling with the extent to which she’s drawn to Villanelle’s charisma and lifestyle, and with Eve ultimately finding there’s nothing more to Villanelle than the beautiful monster that meets the eye. Thing is, that’s not the version we’re getting now and I’m starting to suspect it’s not the version we were ever meant to have.Eve posited as early on as season 1 that Villanelle wasn’t simply the remorseless, murderous sociopath she seemed to be on paper. Was Villanelle a psychopath? Yep. But she wasn’t some self-starting serial killer with a full-on manifesto (like Aaron Peel) or merely a desperate, biddable kid who’d literally kill for freedom and affection (like Nadia). She was identified and recruited by The Twelve for a job only people like her can do unfeelingly and only she can do stylishly. (Seriously, we’ve yet to meet a Twelve assassin with Villanelle’s mindset or skill set.) Maybe without the insane mother, the abandonment, and the criminally irresponsible language teacher, Villanelle develops enough of a conscience, enough impulse control, and enough healthy relationships to lead a life approaching something like normal. Something like Eve’s. Maybe had Eve been born into Villanelle’s circumstances, she would’ve ended up with her psychopathy exploited by a shadow organization too. Maybe that’s what seasons 1 and 2 suggested and season 3 confirmed.Each season’s showrunner has done a great job of leaving just enough ambiguity to justify any direction her successor decides to take. Villanelle could be playing the long game just to get Eve into bed and betray her. She really could be Ramsay-level evil. But then, there’s a reason the characters I initially listed weren’t the focus of their shows. Evil is just evil. It’s predictable. It’s a good plot device but it’s unsustainable as the fundamental characteristic in a lead character. There’s no years-long development to be portrayed or story to be told there (unless we’re talking Walter White and the show refuses to admit the evil until the very end). Which is why, in hindsight, I think we were always headed here with Villanelle. I think the character growth has been organic and I think it does justify the Eve-Villanelle relationship.What season 4 needs, because word is finally out on how amazing Jodie Comer is and I don’t expect the show can hang onto her for much longer, is the sort of deep dive you describe into Villaneve. It’s time to put those two crazy kids together on an episode-to-episode basis and watch them consume each other for better and mostly worse.Because if Killing Eve really has been a love story all along, then it’s almost certainly the “I wish I knew how to quit you” sort.I love a good tragedy too.
All about eve… heh heh heh!
I agree, no matter how much they try, they can’t really ask audiences to sympathize with someone who is ultimately a monstrous sociopath. You can explain how someone like Villanelle came into being (hence why a show like Dexter was compelling in its early days), but even attempting to mine humanity out of someone who has killed countless people, and lest we forget, snapped an innocent child’s neck, is honestly just gross.
Maybe it’s wrong to bring gender into this, but it does seem to shape how a lot of people receive the show: because it’s a woman doing it, it’s ‘empowering’. I’m having the same issue with Dead to Me, which I’ve just finished, in which at some point (small spoiler!) a guy is very rude, is brutally (psychotically!) murdered by the heroine, and we’re seemingly just meant to continue rooting for her, while other characters reassure her that murder isn’t wrong. And it doesn’t seem to be done in a knowing, psychotic-fantasy way (like Falling Down or the like), but rather that the show doesn’t seem to understand the problem, doesn’t see how she’s crossed a line from “loveably problematic” to “heartless murderer”.
I know that people, if you criticise a character like Villanelle, point to shows like The Shield, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and so on. Why is it a problem empathising with a murderous woman, but not with a scumbag man? But to me, that’s missing several points:- we weren’t meant to be on Walter White’s side – at least, not after the second season at the latest. We were meant to have some empathy for him, and to maybe prefer him to Tuco or Fring, but we were never meant to be rooting for him to ‘win’ and get away without consequences. The show was very clear that he was a bad guy and was not, and should not have been, going to get a happy ending.
– a lot of those “antihero” (really, antivillain) shows were about exploring the realistic process that lead to those men being the way they were. I know KE has belatedly tried to flesh out Villanelle, but fundamentally she’s a pure, idealised, manic pixy murder girl who was never deep or realistic from the start and is only there to spark a midlife crisis in Eve. So it’s much harder to empathise with what’s basically a gore-porn fantasy mary sue than with someone who’s brutal but still grounded like Tony Soprano or Stringer Bell.- this issue WAS a problem on those shows, a big one! It made it hard to really care about what happened, forced the writers to go more and more extreme to provide something even worse for the characters to fight against, and often left a bad taste in the mouth. It made those shows more one-dimensional. And sure, that movement/moment had some great shows, but when they worked they did it by having to fight against that hackneyed limitation (increasingly so as it became a cliché; at least Tony Soprano had the advantage of novelty). Look how much easier it’s been to build empathy and rapport for Jimmy McGill than it was with Walter White! [even if BCS lower body count and slower pace make it less appealing in other ways to some viewers]. Shows that take one of the least succesful things about those classic shows and double down on it are making a mistake.FWIW, for an example of an ass-kicking, empowering, man-murdering female serial killer who actually IS sympathetic and complex and infinitely watchable and someone you can want a happy(-ish) ending for, see Elizabeth on The Americans. Because she’s given both admirable motivations (a somewhat-brainwashed patriotism and devotion to social justice through Marxist revolution) and a rich and complicated real life (her relationship with her fake-husband/spy-partner, and with her opposite-of-everything-she’s-fighting-for American children)…
well, that and you had those god-awful internal monologues on Dexter where he droned on about every little thing to justify what he was doing.
Villanelle will just kill someone, make a funny face, and not give two shits about it
Yeah, and she even shows outright glee at the fact that she killed someone. If someone’s not disturbed by a person reacting to murdering someone like that, then you might have a problem. With a show like ‘You’ we have a person who’s truly awful that we find interesting because we may sometimes see ourselves in Joe, but when he’s killing others it makes the effort to portray him in a truly despicable way, and how even though his justifications may make sense to him, it doesn’t make what he’s done any less wrong. Killing Eve on the other hand wants us to forget that Villanelle is a ruthless killer moments before and after she kills someone. It’s like they’re trying to impose the Halo Effect on her.
I feel like the closest a show has gotten to that is “Hannibal” where I had to remind myself sometimes that I wanted Jack to catch him and beat him up and whatnot. Part of it was that Hannibal helped catch other people who were even worse than him, so the audience could cheer for him at times, and Killing Eve has done that somewhat by introducing people far more odious than Villanelle, and way less exciting, so fans can get behind her and gloss over her bad actions. Season two was pretty shamelesswith that, having her spend so much time around that one creep. Season three was better, cause Dasha was a lot more fun and layered than him.
I recall the advance reviews complaining about the focus on V’s interior life, too. I get it. Eve is the psychological riddle throughout the show (and even now); V is the catalyst. One of the best scenes of season 1 was built on the notion that psychologizing her was bullshit, when Eve called her out for pretending to do her work because she had a bad childhood. Some people are bad and some people fantasize about being bad. That’s the show. Similar to Fleabag.I was wondering earlier this season how they would write her to save her life, because in any normal world, she would be deservedly dead. Thus far, Killing Eve has played with that effectively. In the last finale, V killed her superficial doppelganger, using her knowledge of how he thinks to take down his little world. Some people are bad, but very useful! And, bad people have feelings.
Well, we know from season 1 bad people have feelings, or had them. She clearly had a weird mentor/lover relationship with Anna. And yet, that thorny situation is not the site of our exploration here. Of course her mom sucks! That’s how someone ends up in an Anna situation.With better writing, maybe you could care about her. I cared more about her in those photos Anna showed than this season. I liked V 2.0 we saw this episode, but that was because of the show’s kinetic energy around consequences or the lack thereof; she’s just not a traditional character.
It’s the old problem every show has with a great season 1 villain, how do they keep doing it without getting repetitive. What almost every show does is turn them into the hero! Personally, I have liked seeing that the decision to kill her mother has affected Villanelle. We have seen her teary eyed and questioning and that is good character development for me. She’s barely killed anyone since! Eve helped off Dasha and the girl from the Twelve (can’t remember her name but I like the actress Alexandra Roache) sort backed herself onto the train track this week.We saw a Villanelle prepared to walk away from Eve as she knows they have no real future this week. Although the final shot shows they still are connected – maybe to hunt down the Twelve next season? It has to be different surely.I was a bit worried that Villanelle might die as Jodie Comer is certainly hot property and in demand. It’s hard to imagine they will get her for another season after next as her star is rightfully on the rise.
What gripes me is that for a show about murderers, the main characters carry an awful lot of “plot armor” they’ll kill a red shirt here or there, but if you’re Konstantin or Eve or Villanelle or Carolyn, nothing short of a tactical nuke will take you out
Same. I stopped watching after episode 1 of season 3 because I realized I just didn’t care about any of the characters anymore. I would watch the heck out of a Villanelle/Konstantin buddy cop show though.
I think what this season made me realize is I’m kind of over these characters there isn’t a whole lot new to do with them at this point aside from the big team up to take down the 12 even though episode basically said, feh, they are too powerful. Although at 8 episodes I’m sure I’ll watch the next season.
I did enjoy her backstory, just as a fun jaunt to Russia and all, but it didn’t make me feel for Villanelle. She is pretty hilarious and I enjoyed her creative assassinations but I don’t really care about her crisis of conscience or if she leaves the life or not. She is way better at violent hedonism, even though Jodie Comer can totally do the whole range of feelings the writing doesn’t always support the other sides of her character.
The biggest problem here is that they clearly have no endgame. They had this great idea for a first season without the slightest clue what to do after that. Which is pretty sad considering the two character arcs are so horribly obvious: Eve’s obsession with Villanelle would continue to lead her down a darkened path, while Villanelle’s obsession would lead her down a brighter path. The only real decision would be whether they meet in the middle or end up turning into the other.The problem is they’ve wasted two seasons getting that crap even started. Eve has still only almost killed people, meanwhile Villanelle’s heart keeps growing two sizes… and then she kills someone. There have been dozens upon dozens of scenes these past two seasons that have accomplished nothing. Did we need to see that much Carolyn this season? It’s annoying we lost her interesting son and instead got way more of her boring ass AND her annoying daughter to boot. Eve is always more interesting when she’s with other people and when they finally got her into an interesting group, they lost interest in her. Why? So we could see Villanelle be cute and then “shockingly” kill someone else. And did we need so much Dasha? We get it. She’s “Future Villanelle”. She needed half as many scenes as she got.It’s clear at this point that they know they’ve got two powerhouse actors, so they’re going to continue to give us Scenes loosely connected by a half-assed plot.
You know this is based off of a book series right? The show has been following it. There is an endgame.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think at this point the show is only very loosely based on the books, and has diverged entirely in terms of plot.
I’m sort of with you here, but I do like how they’ve approached Villanelle’s story as more of a workplace stagnation than anything. I didn’t really come out of the Mother’s Day episode feeling sorry for Villanelle (if that was their intention, it didn’t land for me), but I do recognize her frustration in feeling pigeon-holed at work. And I liked that they played up that angle, rather than the more typical angle of “oh this hardened criminal was abused as a kid/raped*/had all these injustices done to her.” They made it clear that Villanelle was pretty bad from the start, and while her life probably could have been easier, it certainly isn’t the sob story we usually get from a tv show trying to inject humanity into its bad guy.Villanelle was always going to have to evolve in some way, because four years of gleefully killing fashion plate was going to get old. So if they had to do it, I appreciated that they did it like this.*tv/movie shortcut for “let’s give this woman a reason to be mad about things.”
what was the POINT of any of these TEN HOURS of television?that this show and it’s characters DON’T MATTER?i’m very unhappykonstantine’s daughter? niko? death of kenny? helen? what the FUCK did i spend ten hours on? so a Production Team could get PAID?i’m fucking UN-fucking-HAPPY
I’m not as unhappy as you, because there was a lot of good stuff in this season, but it really did feel as if they had written a 12 episode season, shot the first 7, and then been told it was actually only going to be 8 episodes, and they had to wrap up what they could inside 40 minutes.
i see thatit just meanders so much into scenes that do not move a Story forward it’s like a four episode holding patternand they DID have a new Showrunner and Head Writer this year
and then add in the westworld season 3which was pretty “meh”it’s like game of thrones all over again maybe not that badcould any final season be worse? frasier?
Dexter. The answer is always Dexter. Followed by Scrubs.
i re-watched dexter already i only think it works through the Ice Truck Killer storyafter that it seems forcedbut i like that first season and the secondit’s perfectin the 2000s you knew a show was stretching when the bring in lithgow or smits …david spade
To finally get some quality Villaneve time almost seemed like a reward from Suzanne Heathcote. As if she said, “Okay, they have played along with our silly plots and pointless characters that sucked up so much time for so little payoff. Give them E&V dancing and exchanging longing looks. That should hold ‘em.”
Which I did enjoy. But it doesn’t make up for a rushed conclusion that essentially declared, “Kenny’s dead because he’s a clumsy bastard.”
This season totally worked for me.I don’t watch Killing Eve for The Twelve or MI6 or the global conspiracy or the spy craft. All of that is cool, but it only serves as a means to the end of exploring two fantastically complex characters and their fantastically complex relationship. The show itself seemed to acknowledge as much by revealing Kenny’s death was an accident and with Caroline admitting it may be time to focus their attention away from The Twelve. I mean, we’re three seasons in and we’re no closer to finding out something as basic as The Twelve’s raison d’etre. It’s pretty clear it doesn’t matter.Season 3 did incredible work with Villanelle. Eve didn’t get as much attention, but she did get as much development. She started the season still striving for normalcy, still denying the roots of her fascination with Villanelle and Villanelle’s season 2 finale assertion that they are the same. By season 3’s end, we saw her finally acknowledge her own monster and confront the fact she’s never been “like them.”As for this episode, I greatly appreciated both Eve and Villanelle articulating and demonstrating where their heads are at and what they want from both their lives and each other moving forward. And I cackled every time Caroline or Konstantin just sort of rolled their eyes at Eve and Villanelle running around after each other. Caroline and Konstantin are like the friends who’ve spent so long telling their other friends to just get a room already that they don’t have the energy to tell the other friends to keep it down once they finally do.
The Villaneve fanfic cannot get written fast enough.
While i’m unsatisfied with how they explained Kenny’s death (Can you believe Konstatin?) and the pointlessness of Geraldine and a few of the other side characters, this great ending I suppose showed the point of this muddled season after all: both Eve and V tossing out both of their past lives and attachments, to move closer together, and finally acknowledging they belong to each other. That ending was fairly satisfying and moving and still better than most stuff on TV. Hopefully Season four is better in terms of plot and editing, characters etc. There is a lot of great setup for next season, and I hope it gets done right. Maybe they can talk Waller-Bridge into coming back for it. I’m gonna start reading the books to see how much they hold up and changed.
I knew not to get invested in The Twelve, so that going nowhere was something I anticipated. The Kenny business though… His death pissed me off then, and I’m even madder now. Really, show? I think his absence was felt. When she’s not with V (which is most of the season) Eve really needs someone to bounce off, and that was his role. Without him, weirdly, her character suffered.
I don’t care what anyone says I love this show. Killing Eve fills a hole that Orphan Black left.
“The Twelve? More like The Eleven, amirite?” Carolyn Martens
Well, I’m embarrassed to say that I almost cried at the end.
Yep, definitely embarrassed.
I felt bad for Villanelle’s potential replacement, especially because of how utterly outclassed she was once Villanelle decided to kill her. (Villanelle did too, saying “I’m sorry” to her after she knew she had to do it)
She was destined to be redshirted. If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.
Will Villanelle ever meet her match? I keep hoping so, but it doesn’t happen. I’d like to see her bounce off someone as good as or even better than she is instead of this endless stream of drab, doltish, posturing, or intimidated second-tier assassins.
Potentially Helene might be the actual threat that Villanelle eventually has to reckon with
Helene did make it, after all, a very toxic work environment.(As silly as it was, I just loved Villanelle brightening up significantly when she realized she could exchange office gossip with Paul.)
Villanelle did enjoy Helene’s inappropriate touching, though
How the fuck did Konstantin make it out of the season. The laugh lives.Is V still married?
That had to have been annulled by the bride’s family, given how things went down.
I think it’s safe to assume it doesn’t matter much as she would have used entirely fake details for it all anyways
I was really looking forward to Konstantin dying. He gives no fucks about anything except how things work for him. Not sure why they spared this asshole.
I don’t know if you’ve seen “Justified” but he is Russian Wynn Duffy for sure.
I absolutely adore that getup V wears when they dance (and in the header image). Not so much the orange number she wears at the end.
And every interaction between V and the Bitter Pill gang was GOLD.
I’ve run out of any insightful articulation because of The World, but that was just… goofy. I don’t know if it was bad? But it was goofy. I thought this season got off to a bad start but then by about the 4th episode gave us a great run of excellent episodes, so this one was a bit embarrassing. Will Eve and that rascal sociopath Villanelle ever realize how truly alike they are? Gosh, who knows! They sure are hot, though, and I guess that’s all that matters?AMC and the motion smoothing has made me lose my mind. I watched Quiz on AMC tonight too, and same deal. I can’t figure how it’s the only channel that looks like that.Anyway, as long as the show maintains its sense of humor, I’ll probably just keep at it regardless.
For about three episodes I thought Geraldine killed Kenny. She may still have if the show wants to bend wa-ay over backwards to get there. Even at the end, when the Bitter Pill staff sat Carolyn down, there was some suspense as to who it would be. I suspected Kenny’s gf at one point too (“it was someone he knew,” after all.) So the season had the whiff of a who-dunnit, with all the parties assembled at the end for the big reveal. I wonder how close season 3 followed the Villainelle books. Anyone know? The series began with a tease that each kill would be connected in a grander scheme – more grand than simply “guiding the world of finance and international power by picking off randos here and there.” But if The Twelve is simply The MacGuffin Group, then I guess the show really is just about the relationships between these two women and their surrogate parents. At the beginning, V was almost a symbol – a high concept. “What if the Grim Reaper showed up at your door and wanted to be your friend … maybe with benefits?” It’s tough to take a character who was largely symbolic and make her real. Maybe this is really the Pinocchio story where Eve is both Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket at once.
I used to think that Villanelle really didn’t make sense as a character, but Jodie Comer made her work & made you root for her anyway. Now that we know more of her backstory, with her abusive/ neglectful actual mother and surrogate mother Dasha, I guess that she actually does finally make sense, and I don’t feel as bad about rooting for her, especially now that she wants to stop killing.
But how does that square with Eve who looks like she would very much enjoy killing more people? Now that E&V “are the same” are they heading in different directions when it comes to the whole Murder/Death/Kill thing?
Villanelle didn’t seem to have much problem taking out Rhiane like yesterday’s stinky diapers.
I felt that one thing this season did successfully was humanize Villanelle somewhat & also make Eve seem scarier & more ruthless, so that they plausibly are sort of in roughly the same place & have met in the monstrous middle
The possible problem is while Villanelle really does seem to have lost her thrill for killing, Eve is all-in for wiping out mofos and she doesn’t need money, clothes and other trappings to put her in the mood.
Eve likes it. Maybe likes it a lot. How does Villanelle deal with an Eve that may be more into the murder thing than she is?
That does make it interesting to see how Eve and Villanelle can engage each other as actual people outside of their games
I have read the books, you want me to give you spoilers?
No spoilers. Just that the show is generally following a plan.
The only way the show is following the books is in the basic premise. Villanelle, lovely and amazing assassin and Eve nerdy plain MI6 agent obsessed with each other, that’s it.Villanelle is a very different character in the books. Her personality is way more dimensional than just, kills people for shadowy organization. She has friends and relationships and goes to parties and concerts etc.That’s why in order to continue this series they absolutely had to catch show Villanelle up to book Villanelle. Otherwise how do you write a one dimensional psychopath into a love story or any story that branches out beyond one dimensional psychopath kills people for a living?
A disappointing end to what had been a strong season. They seemed caught between showing Paul do his thing and then get uncovered, and having Paul as the shock reveal. So his comeuppance felt strangely underwhelming. I’m really not sure where the show goes from here.
I thought it was a good season finale, liked it better than season 2’s finale. Overall, the season was a little uneven at times but closed out strong. Looking forward to season 4.
Season 1 was interesting, new, exciting and well-written. Season 2 had more danger, more exotic locales, but spent too much time delving into the psychology of Villanelle instead of just letting her run wild. It was starting to meander and the ending was unsatisfying. It felt like the writers just said fuck it, that’ll do for the finale.Season 3 has had no idea what it wants to do, be or say. Its obvious the writers are throwing shit against the wall to see if it sticks. As a result, this show has managed to disappear up it’s own ass. I love Sandra and Jodie, and there are some other great quirky characters, but they’re wasted on this show. I’m done with Killing Eve.
This comment translates my feelings exactly. I was just thinking maybe Waller-Bridge returning for the fourth season might return things to their former heights, but I wouldn’t wish somehow making sense of the current state of the show on her, or anyone, really.I’ll probably keep watching out of a morbid curiosity, but these past two seasons have had no real vision and it’s a shame to see such potential squandered
I kept thinking that Geraldine was going to pull the rug out and be part of the Twelve or worse. The way she kept badgering Carolyn for information all season had me suspecting her as a spy not just an emotionally neglected daughter. I realize it would be too much even for a show like this. Not EVERY character can be duplicitous. I’m guessing her role was more a way to peer into Carolyn’s psychology through their interactions, which I enjoyed immensely. She’s a hard woman sure but not an automaton.
I have to make a confession: I love this show. I love the actors and it keeps me entertained and curious every episode, BUT with that said; I still don’t really understand a lot of it. Like Villanelle is a complex character. She may or may not be bisexual and who could even care, but is Eve? Why is she so obsessed with Villanelle and is it even romantic? They both attacked each other and Villanelle seemed to hold a huge grudge over Eve because of it, but Eve doesn’t seem too mad at V for shooting her. What is even the mission of The Twelve? Just killing important European people for….? I need like a diagram to understand it lol.
Eve loses 20 IQ points per season.
Stupid question; was Eve finally killed?
This finale made a bigger thud than Kenny. What an anticlimactic resolution to his death. I swore it would be Geraldine; jealous of Kenny’s relationship with “mum” she joined the enemy, and when Kenny was about to find her out she casually visits him at work and kills him. Later Carolyn discovers Geraldine’s employment and the fact that she killed Kenny – and had to kill her own daughter. Now THAT would have been a good climax to that story – but no. Kenny just made a fatal oopsie and fell off the roof (or Konstantine killed him, but so what in either case) , and Geraldine is really JUST Geraldine. Total miss, like the episode.The showdown between V and her replacement? Another swing and a miss. The girl hardly even put up a fight. Why stand there and wait for V to push her off the platform? And then V simply strolls out. Just a terribly written fight scene.The expository apartment scene seemed to have been written 10 minutes before they filmed it. A mess of inconsistencies and more anticlimactic material. The Twelve is just a Macguffin and it got in the way. They just don’t seem to know what to do with the characters and story, but the talent is awesome.
A fun little detail I noticed: Dasha had said last episode that she was going home to Russia to see her son, and she would die with her feet up and her hand being held. In this episode she dies with her feet up, elevated by a hospital bed, and, at least until the last moment, her hand held by Konstantin.
I would give the finale an A- at least. Eve & Villanelle together on screen is always gold, and though we got precious little of it this season, I really enjoyed their interaction in the finale. I was fine with the focus being on V this season cause Jodie Comer is beyond amazing, as is the complex character PWB and her cohorts have created. But yeah, the plots really stretch credulity. I mean, the magazine guy just forgot he had video of the office? That was a huge miss. Though again, it was saved by V’s visit, which was wonderfully played. And I was waiting for Geraldine to be revealed as Kenny-killer or head of the 12, but maybe they’re still going to go there or at least somewhere adjacent.But I’m not here for the plots. I let this show literally get away with murder, cause it is so quirky and weird and hilarious and girl powered, it makes me giddy. There were some really wonderful moments this season: Dasha putting the baby in the trash can, the bus showdown, the always welcome return of Irina, the dung flinging championship…
Go on with your weird bad self, Killing Eve, and long may you wave.
All I can say is that this season has made me really look forward to seeing Konstantine/Kim Bodnia play Vesemir in the next season of The Witcher. He’s gonna be great.
Konstantin AKA Russian Wynn Duffy. Those dudes have a lot in common. I wonder if K is into women’s tennis?
Does anyone remember the show “Murder One”? The first season followed one long Hollywood murder investigation, and it aired back in 1995 when season-long mysteries were a novel thing. After a very involved mystery was set up… a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous… the investigators found out that there had been a camera in the apartment where the murder occurred and it recorded the whole thing. I thought this was a huge cop out, and now whenever it turns out that a previously unrevealed camera provides the solution to a mystery, I think back to that show. It happens more often than I realized.I understand that in “Killing Eve” the relationships between the characters is more the point of the show than the mystery of Kenny’s death, and I enjoyed the season overall. But the ‘I just remembered a hidden camera’ still made me groan.
I read an interview with the showrunner saying a relationship between the two “wouldn’t work” way to telegraph the ending…
“I want to know what the canteen’s like.” “Here?” “MI6.” “It’s heavily lasagna based. Sometimes they branch out into cannelloni.” Carolyn is so good, I’m glad there was more of her this season.
I had fun finally catching up on this, but honestly, gah. It was so good in season 1 and now it’s an entirely different show. I’m not exactly done with it (I will totally keep watching) but it feels to me like it’s pretty much just queerbaiting all wrapped up in wonderful actresses and production values, and some seriously dumb “super-secret-conclave” stuff that I don’t care about at all.
The increasing presence of “The Twelve” has honestly had me yawning my way through so many scenes, because it’s just silly window-dressing, meant to give side-characters something important-looking to do while V and Eve circle each other from afar and never, ever, move forward or backward in a definitive way. Literally. And while I care about some of the side characters, like Carolyn, Kenny, or Konstantin (guardedly) or Bill in S1 (before he was written to be a complete idiot so that he could die on cue), the show keeps giving me terrible writing to resolve their issues, so that I lose that connection. How does someone “forget” they had a camera in the office at the (cough) most paranoid and respected online publication around, until the season finale? Why give us obvious or erratically unresolved plots for supporting characters, just because they aren’t Eve or V? How in the world does Konstantin’s daughter ALSO turn out to be a psychopath? (I liked her so much more when she was just a grumpy teenager.)
So when this season ended with V and Eve on the bridge, and the two separate but looking back longingly I laughed out loud. Because, of course.
There is NO WAY that these women — who are openly romantically obsessed with each other for years now — wouldn’t have had some kind of romantic contact, even if we assume they’re aro or ace (which they have demonstrated they aren’t). Each season gives viewers another tantalizing little sliver to keep them going. S1 with the two on the bed or in the bathtub. S2 with the Italy confrontation (with, of course, zero contact). This season? We got an unsexy kiss that felt like a distraction ploy, and then a dance.
And after three years, I just find that beyond belief. If this couple were heterosexual, I do not think these same artificial barriers would have been applied, or the almost laughable efforts to ensure that the two characters we are most invested in are kept apart until (of course) each finale.
I’ll keep watching. It’s a fun show, and the actors make it honestly SO much better than it should be. But I’ll have a lot more fun going forward because I realized with this finale that it’s just an inconsistent tease all dressed up to seem more important than it is. (Two women obsessed with each other! And one is an assassin! And they might actually one day make it physical, only probably not! etc!) Thanks for the recaps and discussions throughout the seasons — it was fun to catch up and then read here during the holidays. I wish I felt the show was more deserving of the attention at this point.